“XO Tour Llif3” by Lil Uzi Vert

I’ve said some harsh things about this artist in the past, mostly because I disliked his featured appearance on Migos’ “Bad and Boujee” so strongly, but now that he is (at least purportedly) supposed to be retiring from the music scene, I felt the need to explore his body of work a little more deeply. I was actually surprised to find how much more effective and interesting he is on his own albums. My primary objection to his appearance on “Bad and Boujee” was his bizarre vocal quality, which on that song sounded unintentionally comic. However, on his solo albums and mixtapes, his work has a uniquely quirky sensibility that manages to turn his odd vocal sound into an asset rather than a liability. Lil Uzi Vert is a significantly more interesting lyricist than most of the other big-name Hook-Rappers, and this song in particular is a morbid, twisted ode to emotional numbness and death-embracing fatalism that goes far beyond the dimensions of your average “Emo-Rap” song like Juiceworld’s “Lucid Dreams”. I was pretty much entirely wrong about this guy and his work, and ironically enough, I, who until very recently was one of this Rapper’s biggest detractors, now find myself among those fervently hoping that his threat of retirement was merely a publicity stunt for his next album.

Verdict: Far more fascinating and evocative than I would have ever expected.